


Yet Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves

by Roburraparte



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Death, Drinking, Oneshot, Suicide, this is analysis masquerading as a fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 14:16:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5931451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roburraparte/pseuds/Roburraparte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By each let this be heard,<br/>Some do it with a bitter look,<br/>Some with a flattering word,<br/>The coward does it with a kiss,<br/>The brave man with a sword.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yet Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves

**Author's Note:**

> The poem that is quoted throughout this is The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde. It's what inspired me to write this.

He stood with the rising sun behind him, and could just begin to feel it’s warm rays touching the back of his neck as he leveled his pistol. Hamilton’s glasses, the shiny bronze of the pistol, both glinted in the pale morning and he wished he could look the man in the eye but he was hidden behind the shining light. When he extended his arm he saw his shadow reach out, stretching so that it almost reached Hamilton.

_For each man kills the thing he loves,  
_ _Yet each man does not die._

There were two shots, fired in rapid succession.  The smoke from the pistols swirled and mixed with the fog of the morning, and for a split horrific moment the only sound was a cry from a few feet away followed by a heavy thud and panicked voices. Burr’s breath caught in his throat and he flinched, as though he could somehow be surprised by his premeditated actions. For some reason, even though he had deliberately fired his pistol, it still seemed an impossible result. His first instinct was to rush forwards, to try in some pitiful way to help, but he was pushed away gently, Van Ness taking his arm. He didn’t remember when he had dropped his pistol but he reaches out his now empty hand – the shadow hanging over Hamilton like an ill omen. Burr can hear him speaking quickly, softly, muttering, and he wants to hear every word, but his second hustles him away. The footsteps and voice of the doctor arriving are clear and Hamilton’s voice is drowned out further.

He moved in a trance, his mind trying to remain with his opponent as he was physically leaving him behind. Vaguely he was aware of a voice talking to him but he could not find any words respond. Hamilton was the one with the words, even in death. Burr dared not look back.

_The coward does it with a kiss,  
The brave man with a sword._

Sitting in an almost empty pub, cupping a glass in his hands and meditating on the fate of his soul, he could almost dare to laugh. The end of his story – and he was certain that this would be the end – perfectly mirrored the beginning. Hamilton, followed by drinks. The only difference being that now he was alone, the images and sounds of that morning at Weehawken replaying over and over in his head so he wondered if he were actually trapped in some horrible drunken limbo, that one catastrophic moment being past, present and future, swirling around him like the mist of the dueling ground. He finished his drink, waited for a chorus of hopeful voices that never came. He was quite alone. He glanced around the room as though searching for friends anyway; his wife, his daughter, perhaps even Hamilton. A second drink goes down, this one faster and easier than the last, so he barely thinks twice of ordering another.

_Some do the deed with many tears,  
_ _And some without a sigh._

“My friend, Hamilton, whom I shot.” He repeated to himself these words until they were no longer acid on his tongue, until they no longer had any power over him. He prepared his mask of apathy so that when the questions inevitably came they could not shake him. No, his grief was his own to feel, the world had no right to know and could never understand. Let them speculate, let them slander, so long as it was based on lies and not truth. He experimented with emphasis on the phrase.

“My friend, _Hamilton,_ whom I shot.” _Hamilton, the force of nature, the little lion._

“My friend, Hamilton, whom _I_ shot.” _He who had always hated confrontation._

“My friend, Hamilton, whom I _shot._ ” _In cold blood, murdered._

“My _friend,_ Hamilton, whom I shot.”

There was the one that hurt most. How many people could he truly call his friend throughout his life? Two or three? And in his folly he had managed to kill one of that select group of people.  Burr wished for a mirror, to examine the face of a man who could murder his friend and shed not a single tear. Surely he had looked upon many such men in court, had defended and prosecuted them indiscriminately, seeing only a person, and yet he was certain that something about him must have changed. How could it not, having done such a deed?

_The man had killed the thing he loved,  
_ _And so he had to die._

He still had the pistol from that morning by his side. It was heavy in his hands, and he was almost certainly fooling himself but the metal of the barrel still held some lingering warmth from being fired. Perhaps it was his touch as he held it though, flesh against steel. Examining it with excruciating attention he was reminded of how Alexander had done similarly before the fateful moment, and wondered if they would both be ended by the same pistol. Doubt pooled in his stomach as he remembered the reason he fired; his daughter, so far from him now. Yet she was married and had no further need of him; he need not have fired at all had the adrenaline of the moment cleared to let him think. Usually so cautious, thinking every decision out excessively until he could not be more sure it was the right thing to do, he had acted without such restraint, and now he could not be more sure that it was the wrong thing he’d done. It was one of the few times where he could look back on his mantra and say it was correct, and the only time he could look back and say he had not acted upon it.

He had considered this carefully though. Aaron knew it was the coward’s way out, knew far too well that this was an admission of guilt, extinguishing all hope of redemption. His heart beat steadily and heavily in his chest, his body seeming as if to shake with each pound, but his hands were completely still. Being a soldier he had faced death before and the idea held no weight for him; to die was as natural as falling asleep. There was a faint feeling in his gut that this would be a mistake, but he dared not listen to anything except his conscious, methodical thoughts. _I am the one thing in life I can control._ If he was to be disgraced it would be on his own terms, his choice.

As he slid the barrel of the gun into his mouth his lip quirked upwards; the innuendo of it being far too amusing for the situation. He had composed a note before the duel, it would suffice for this as well. Closing his eyes, with a serene countenance that only a man such as him could have under these circumstances, he pulled the trigger.

_And strange it was to see him look_  
_So wistfully at the day,_  
_And strange it was to think that he_  
_Had such a debt to pay._

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday Aaron Burr! Oops I wrote angst for your big day, oh well... I do recognise that I have rushed this out to make it for today, so it's not as good as it could/should be. I'll probably come back and redraft this so criticism is encouraged! Thank you for reading.


End file.
